Not that long ago there was a TV advert, for yoghurt I think, that played on the "Pleasure V's Pain" theme and that is what yesterday was like for myself and my family. I will go through the day in reverse order, the day before yesterday, Friday, I was contacted by my very tearful Daughter KT who informed me that my ex wife's (Helen) father (exish Father in Law) John was in Hospital with a suspected heart attack and was very poorly. The following day, Saturday, was a busy day for me I had a lot to do but on top of that we had conformation of exchange of contracts on our house so Lorni and I were going to celebrate that when I got home but! later in the day we found out that John had in fact had a big heart attack and after tests it was found that he only had 35% function of his heart left and his left ventricle was totally screwed and he was suffering from quiet bad fluid retention and because of his age weight and general health the doctors will not operate on him.
John is an amazing man he joined the Air Force at 15 he was told to walk around the block and then tell the authorities his age again, you had to be at least 16 to join the RAF then. I may have got this wrong but I believe he was on active duty for about 43 years, this man is a colossus he has always helped out his family whenever he could and as KT said "he has always been there can't imagine a life where he is not there, we thought he was indestructible", John is one of the few men that have been in my life that I have ever had any respect for.
My abiding memory of John is of him sitting in his dining room surrounded by radio gear some of it home made some of it high tech and new, Yesterday he was told how bad his condition is and having considered what he was told he signed a DNR form ( do not resuscitate) I can't imagine in any way what it must feel like to sign your own death warrant to know that you are at the "end of life" scenario. He is 90 in a few weeks and I was told that he had said "so I wont reach my 90th then" We all hope and pray he will recover but in reality it doesn't look good at all, I know all my kids are in an emotional state at the moment, it is times like this that makes us come to terms with our own mortality and that our time on this planet is finite and we never know when our time clock will get punched, so as I tell everyone including my own children, do whatever makes you happy, don't just sit there go and live your life and make it brilliant.
So yesterday I was up at silly O'clock I had to take the truck to the caravan storage depot where Steve, Phil and I were going to take the engine out of the dragster, usually we have Dave with us but he has been suffering with the flu and still was under the weather so we met up with him at our usual meeting place, the BP garage on the A6 just before Bedford where not only did we get the trailer keys from Dave but he wanted one of my old remote planes, he intended to hang it in his flat so in front of a Police car we swapped the plane form my car to his it did fit eventually LOL
It is rather large so good luck with that Dave that's one less thing I have to sell or pack now. Anyway Yesterday was a miserable day weather wise as well and rain was forecast for the whole day not the best days for removing an engine out in the open so before we went too far Steve did a compression test on the engine and all 8 cylinders were showing 241 psi so it would seem that there is no serious damage at all and the small puffs of smoke we get at the hit are probably due to valve stem seals so nothing to worry about so we didn't have to take the motor out just yet so tidy up and go home, first we had to take a torque converter up to the Pod for our friends the Brown twins then drive home with Steve who then took my truck away for the last time...yes I did shed a small tear I love that Dodge and of course I also said goodbye to my Dragster, dam we had some fun I may get to race her again at next years Dragstalgia but that would defiantly be the last time.
All Steve's problem now, sob sob, I got home yesterday evening to find out that Chris is on his way home even though he ended up getting off at the wrong train station, Beth is still here at the moment but going home soon we had exchanged contracts on the house I had relinquished responsibility for the racing team shifted on of my planes all of which was good news but balanced by what was happening to John I didn't feel like celebrating then I saw on Facebook that Montserrat Caballe had passed away at 85 she was the opera singer who sang "Barcelona" with Freddy Mercury.
It has been a real up and own day today I hope for everyone's sake that today gets better and better, for me I am having the day off, I'm also not as young as I would like to be and I need a rest these days after any amount of hard work or a long day. On Friday just gone I also had two eye tests one for glasses and one was my annual Diabetic eye check, good news on both fronts my eyes haven't changed in three years, oh well little victories, Next week is going to be very busy again, more runs to the tip a run to Essex to off-load more planes and time to sort out pensions and some paperwork and sort the garage and Harley out, time is running out!!
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